


winds that awaken the stars

by mikkey_bones



Series: Star-Crossed [Star Wars AU] [1]
Category: Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars Fusion, Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Camping, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Slow Burn, Wilderness Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-08
Updated: 2016-04-08
Packaged: 2018-06-01 01:32:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6495532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikkey_bones/pseuds/mikkey_bones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's an X-Wing pilot in the Resistance. She's a bounty hunter who sells her skills to the highest bidder. And right now? They're both stranded in the middle of nowhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to tumblr user [caedusren](http://caedusren.tumblr.com) for suggesting/requesting this AU in the first place. Art will be added soon!
> 
> Title/epigraph comes from a Yeats poem I can't recall at the moment.

_For the winds that awakened the stars  
Are blowing through my blood._

*

It's always the simple missions that go wrong. Escort duty is supposed to be easy—a blue milk run. Accompany the cargo freighter, exchange fire with the odd smuggler or pirate, watch a holovid or three on the hyperspace run, make it back to D'Qar in time for dinner, job done. But you know what they say about the best laid plans of Hutts and Humans. And the universe isn't cutting James any slack today.

“ _Red Six to Red Three. Picking up some signals on our left_ ,” Sam's voice cuts in on his comm. Even as he speaks, James watches red dots begin to appear on radar screen. Sam's the lookout, their eye in the sky; he picks up everything first.

“ _Four—no, six, on the left_ ,” Sam continues.

Maria Hill is the commander of Red Squadron. It's her voice that comes in on the comm next: “ _Assume hostiles_. _Defensive formation_.”

“Here we go,” James says to R5-C4, who beeps in confirmation. He pulls up as Sam pulls in, forming a tighter guard around the cargo freighter. Nobody in the Outer Rim cares about a few stray X-Wings; there's enough scraps of metal and parts scattered around the entire region that no one is in short supply. It's the cargo that matters—equipment, uniforms, _weapons_.

“ _Not local law enforcement_ ,” Sam announces over the comm.

“Not a surprise,” James says dryly, but doesn't broadcast it. There's no such thing as law enforcement out here, unless you count the security forces for half a dozen private companies that have been involved in mining and resource extraction since before the Clone Wars, and will probably still be out here long after both the First Order and the New Republic have crumbled into dust.

“ _Cargo One, how long 'til you're prepared for hyperspace_?” Commander Hill asks.

“ _Ten minutes_ ,” Sharon replies, her voice tense. Usually, supply runs are quick and painless in-and-out sort of operations. Either they've got an information leak somewhere, or today's just not their lucky day.

“ _You heard the pilot_ ,” Hill tells them all, as their attackers—now there's nine little dots on his radar—swarm forward.

James is used to the pace of battle in space, keeping one eye looking out his viewports and the other on his radar screen, listening for his squadron's chatter and for updates from R5-C4. Out here, it's all about speed—maneuvering in a zero-g environment to be above, below, next to your opponent without giving them a chance to shoot right through you. Speed and the ability to narrow your focus down to the millisecond between one shot and the next.

He takes down one of the fighters, which explodes in brightly colored fiery bursts. Has to dodge the rubble, after that. Sam, he thinks, or maybe Maria, takes down another; he sees the explosion from the corner of his eye.

The fighters are small, fast, not Republic-make. They're typical smuggler ships, fast and maneuverable but looking like they were assembled in a scrap heap, and James is on that train of thought when his X-Wing shudders and he realizes he's been hit.

R5 gives a quick report: no fatal damage, but a minor coolant leak in one of the retro thrusters that's going to get worse if they don't tend to it soon. Not going to destroy the ship, though. James pulls up and does a quick turn as he fires, trying to get a little revenge, but three more of the nimble fighters come up to surround him and he has to duck his X-Wing down again, trying to outmaneuver them.

“ _Four more minutes_ ,” Sharon announces. Her voice is remarkably calm considering the situation.

“Backup for Red Three?” James requests, broadcasting his voice over the comm for the first time as he does a roll, flipping his X-Wing back up in reverse to fire at his pursuers. At least he's drawing them away from the freighter.

“ _Sorry_ ,” Sam says. “ _Got my hands full_.”

“Likewise,” agrees Commander Hill, and James can see on his radar screen that both of them are just as overwhelmed as he is.

If this was a real smuggling operation, the small fighter ships would be followed by some kind of large freighter, one that's equipped with a tractor beam, and…

“ _Incoming behind me, Red Squadron_ ,” Sharon says. “ _Big bogey. We've gotta stall for time_.” This isn't any kind of mission where they can cut and run. The Resistance can't _afford_ to lose this shipment.

James curses over the comm, speeds up, then spins back to join Sam in a defensive formation. There are fewer fighters now, but they're doing their job—distraction and harassment—remarkably well. None of them are going after the Resistance freighter, but that's because they don't want to damage the cargo, and the freighter is slow enough it's a sitting duck for the tractor beam anyway.

He takes out another fighter and watches as, the rear engine in flames, it limps back to the larger ship. There's not time to watch for long, though.

“ _Three! Behind you! Pull up!_ ” Hill orders and James does in time to avoid the out-of-control fighter that's spinning wildly towards him. The maneuver puts him in range of another fighter, though, which doesn't miss the opportunity to fire. James's X-Wing shudders ominously with three direct hits as he fires back and pulls away.

There's a high-pitched beeping noise from his ship's sensors that's soon matched by R5.

“ _Red Three, status_ ,” Hill snaps.

“Hyperdrive unit,” James says. “Hit.” He won't be able to make the jump—if he tries, it's likely he'll end up a trail of atoms along the Five Veils Route.

“ _One minute_ ,” Sharon announces.

“Go without me,” James says. This is suicide, but… “I'll buy us some time. Get to land.” And even as he speaks he's firing on the fighter that got his hyperdrive. Both parties know that time is running out, and the dogfight is getting more heated.

“ _Bucky_ ,” Sam says.

“Tell 'em I won't be long,” James says. He's got a final testament already, a little paper he wrote up about how to distribute his stuff after he's dead. Steve gets most of it, whatever he can keep, being a Jedi and all; Sam gets his astromech droid and his X-wing—though that might be pointless now too.

R5 gives a sad beep. Hill hammers three shots in succession into a fighter and it lights up in a burst of sparks. “ _We can't send anyone after you_ ,” she reminds him.

“ _Good luck, Bucky,_ ” Sharon adds. “ _Countdown from fifteen_. _Fourteen. Thirteen._ ”

“I'll make it out of this,” James says with as much confidence as he can muster while the other X-Wings shift to face forward again. He pulls away from the group—doesn't want to get caught in the spacetime draft from their transfer to hyperspeed—and the fighters do too, concentrating on him now that their prey is escaping.

“ _Six. Five_.”

James rolls the X-Wing, fires back at his pursuers. “Tell Steve I'll be back!” he says in the last seconds before the comm link disconnects. And then the ships seem to blur and stretch out, with a weird ripple feeling, a wave of gravity, and then they're gone with a pop and the universe snaps back into place.

And he's alone.

Well, alone with three hostile fighters on his tail. James accelerates, banking on losing their interest as he navigates back towards the planet Susefvi. There's not much money to be made on a single X-Wing T70. Two of the ships, he sees on his radar screen, do lose interest, pulling back towards the larger one.

The third ship, however, is more of a problem. James recognizes the same fighter that damaged his hyperdrive in the first place, and it's in dogged pursuit. He curses out loud, and R5 makes a string of worried beeps.

“I know,” James says. Evasive maneuvers aren't going to cut it. So he flips back up and around, letting the fighter's momentum carry it past him so that he can fire at it from behind. Now that their positions are reversed, he can get a few good shots in and sees that one of them, at least, connects. There's some spark, and the fighter jolts a little, but it remains steady, its gyroscopic systems functioning perfectly as the pilot pulls to the side. James keeps shooting. With the speed they're going at, they're about to enter the atmosphere—

—and he feels it, like a jolt in his ribs as he's captured by the planet's gravity and that rich, blue-green nitrogen/oxygen blend of Susevfi's stratosphere.

The fighter shoots at him; it strikes one of the S-foils right where the wings join the body of the ship. James feels his X-Wing give an ominous shudder and curses again as R5 informs him of the damage: they don't have much flight time left, and they're miles away from any decent sized cities.

But there's a more pressing problem than that, because his adversary is still firing. James pulls up his X-Wing in a maneuver that makes the ship's engines scream in protest, letting the fighter pass them and once again sending a cannon blast its way.

It's a hit—but James doesn't know how good the hit was, because as soon as the fighter seems distracted enough he pulls down again and starts the tricky business of landing, which gets even trickier now that his ship is leaking coolant, lacking half the gyroscopes on the left side, and jolting alarmingly at every bump of turbulence they pass.

There's an open sort of desert clearing ahead. James has R5 navigate there while he focuses on slowing the ship. They make a graceless landing, plowing a mile through dirt and rock before fully coming to a stop.

And then, aside from the low hiss of steam and smoke and the constant, alarmed beeping from his onboard computer… everything is calm.

James lets out a breath. “R5, still with me?”

R5 gives an affirmative whistle.

James takes his hands off the steering system. They're shaking. Now that the immediate danger is over, and he's somehow made it safe to land, he's shaking all over as his body tries to manage the overload of adrenaline. He bites back the urge to start laughing hysterically, because he knows if he does, he'll never stop.

First thing: systems check. He'll have to see if there's a way he can get some kind of message to the Resistance, or if there's anything from this X-Wing he can salvage. And after that…

James opens the cockpit of his ship, looking around as the dust from his impromptu landing settles and leaves him under the greenish-blue sky. There's stunted trees, with thick trunks and small leaves. Hills that turn into craggy-looking mountains in the near distance. A ravine, about ten meters away from his landing site. And otherwise? Nothing.

No one's coming for him. The Resistance doesn't have people to spare. Grimly, he turns to R5. “We're gonna be doing a _lot_ of walking.”


	2. Chapter 2

Typically, the strike that took out James's hyperdrive also shorted out his communications, at least the encrypted ones, and there's no way he's going to blast his location in an open signal all the way to D'Qar. That's no good, then, and there's not much of the rest of the ship he can salvage, at least not without dragging a ton of scrap metal behind him while he looks for civilization. So James does what every stranded pilot is taught—he starts stripping down his ship for the most valuable, most easily carried parts. R5 helps.

“At least we can breathe here,” James comments to the droid as he's uploading the contents of the ship's computer database into R5's internal memory. “And the ground's firm. No weird snakes. It's not Dagobah.”

R5, busy sorting through the influx of data, doesn't respond. But neither of them had liked Dagobah much. Or Yavin 4, for that matter. Too many creepy-crawlies, not enough vantage points. Susefvi, on the other hand, looks like a planet of nothing but vantage points—plenty of rocky outcroppings and escarpments and ravines and canyons, the kinds of geological formations that are fun to fly over, not so fun to walk through.

“At least it's not raining,” James says, finishing the upload and then starting the process to wipe his ship's hard drive. That might have been pushing his luck though, because a dry, amused-sounding voice behind him answers, “Just wait until monsoon season.”

James jumps half out of his skin and whirls around, reaching for his blaster at his hip, only to come face to face with somebody pointing a blaster at _him_.

“Don't even think about it,” they say. “Drop the blaster. Hands up.”

James hesitates for a moment and then decides that, once again, he's not going to go out of his way to try to get himself killed. He lets go of his hip blaster, which thuds into the dirt, and raises both hands slowly, looking his attacker up and down. She's a human female, as far as he can tell. Red hair tied back tightly; black, sleek-looking atmosphere suit. She's got a blaster leveled at him, aimed right between his eyes, but the metallic bands around her wrists are also crackling with blue-white arcs of energy.

“I call them Widow's Bites,” the woman says, upon noticing James's curious gaze. “They hurt.”

“I'll bet,” James agrees.

“Which is why you're gonna cooperate and give me your hands so I can get the stun-cuffs on,” the woman continues without lowering her blaster. “Because you don't want to get knocked out by one of these. I can't promise all your bodily functions will still be working when you scrape yourself off the ground.”

She doesn't look like she's joking around. James tries to hold off the inevitable. “Can I just ask what the cuffs are for?” he says, lowering his hands as slowly as he possibly can while still obeying her orders.

“You were an escort in the Resistance convoy that took off from Czerka City,” the woman says, her metal bracelets sparking ominously as she grabs his hands in a smooth motion, pulls them together, and slaps on the stun-cuffs.

 _Oh_ , he thinks as the durasteel loops clamp shut around his wrists. And then, _oh, fuck_.

R5 chooses that moment to finish his data processing sequence and, once it gets a handle on what's happening, gives a loud screech of alarm. James isn't exactly sure how that's supposed to help. All it does is make the woman whirl around and shoot with one of her wrist-weapons.

“Ion blast function,” she says as a purple-blue net of electrical charges spreads over R5's chassis. “Works on droids. I've got sentient-strength electric pulses too, don't worry.”

The woman doesn't say much else as she pats James down, taking his vibroblade and his toolkit and the second blaster that he keeps tucked into a small pocket by his boot. And his mini holovid player. And the smooth river rock that Steve brought back for him from Vrogas Vas, because, “It felt like you, Buck.”

“Hang on,” James says quickly. “Not that.”

The woman is turning the rock over in her hands with curiosity and mild suspicion, and looks like she's about to drop it back into the dirt. 

“Please,” James says. “It's just a rock. Honestly. It doesn't do anything. But it's from a friend.”

She frowns at the rock, and then at James.

“ _Please_ ,” he says and is already debating about whether he should tell Steve that this, of all things, is what made him beg, when (if) he gets back to D'Qar.

There's a moment when James thinks that the woman is going to take the rock and throw it as far away from him as possible, just out of spite, but then she puts it back into his flightsuit pocket. “You won't get to keep this for long, you know.”

The river stone's comfortable weight settles back against James's chest, by his heart. “Where are you taking me?” he asks. If she was First Order, he thinks, well, first of all she'd be wearing one of those hand-me-down Imperial uniforms. So maybe…

“Tatooine.”

“What?” James asks. “What's in Tatooine?”

But she's apparently lost interest in talking to him for the moment. Because he doesn't have much of a choice, James lets her lead him (guiding him with the blaster to his back) over to one of the scrubby, twisted looking trees that seem pretty abundant on this planet, and refasten his stun-cuffs around the tree trunk, so he's got nowhere to go.

Then he gets to watch her go through his ship, finishing the job that he'd started as soon as he landed—stripping the valuables, combing through the rest, checking for valuable information. He's glad that he's already had a chance to wipe the onboard computers, especially the nav system.

His droid, on the other hand, is a problem.

“I want the access codes,” the woman says when she finally makes her way to examine R5, who hasn't moved from its spot.

James opens his mouth, shuts it, and then decides to do what he does best: he takes a gamble. “No.”

The woman frowns, straightens, and raises her blaster threateningly. “I think you're forgetting who's in charge here.”

No. No, he definitely isn't. “I'm kind of getting the impression you want me alive,” James says, trying not to speak too quickly and accidentally betray that he's slightly nervous. Nervousness never won a bet. “And able to support my own weight, unless you wanna drag me back to your ship or wherever. And if you wanted to torture me for information—well, most people would be doing that already.”

The woman frowns, which isn't a huge change of expression, but James can see it even from seven meters away. He's scored a point. Only sort of, though, because after a moment she says, “Give me the access code, or I wipe your droid.”

That makes James wince. He's had R5 for ages now, probably. Just like he had that X-Wing. But unlike the X-Wing, there's a backup of R5's software and data drives at the Resistance base in D'Qar, and the last update was made a month ago… so if he lets the woman wipe R5 now, it isn't like he's losing it forever. As long as he manages to get them both back to base, which he's got every intention of doing.

And this way, she won't get the Resistance data… which she doesn't seem to be after, anyway. Just him, for some reason.

“Fine,” he says after a few moments, through gritted teeth, and the woman looks surprised for just a second, and then suspicious, and then smoothes her face into a neutral expression once more.

“Fine,” she repeats. “Astromech droids sell well on the market here.” She bends down to work on R5 once more. James knows he's being an idiot, but pilots tend to get kind of attached to their droids—he has to look away, down at his feet, until she's done.

The woman ends up leading him back to where she came from, her blaster at his back and the freshly-wiped R5-C4 trundling along blankly behind them. Both the woman and the droid are holding makeshift sacks of salvaged parts. James, as the prisoner, has nothing.

They head into a clearing that James quickly realizes isn't natural—it is, in fact, very recent, judging by the flattened trees and the smuggler ship in a still slightly-smoking crater at the far end. He connects the dots in a flash.

“You're the one who brought me down!” he says with sudden… shock? Awe? Anger? He's not sure himself. “The smuggler!”

“Bounty hunter,” she corrects him as she cuffs him to another tree. “Took you long enough to figure it out. Could've at least left me my engines. I was hoping your ship would be usable… But it looks like we've got to take the long way out.”

James turns to look at her ship again, which, like she said, seems to be in no shape to get off the ground, let alone make a hyperspace jump. Then he looks at her, and feels an almost irrepressible urge to laugh at this bizarre situation. “You're stuck too,” he says, grinning in spite of himself.

She's putting the sacks from his X-Wing by the stuff she's already salvaged from her own ship, and looking through them for something. “Don't sound so happy about it. At least I'm not stuck to a tree.” After a moment she pulls out one of James's ration tins, and another one that James doesn't recognize. Must be one of hers. “Food,” she says. “Nightfall in an hour. We're camping here, getting an early start tomorrow.”

“I can't eat with no hands,” James points out, raising his eyebrows in the ration tin that she's just tossed in front of him.

The woman opens her mouth like she has a suggestion, and James has a sudden and vivid image of her sitting in front of him and feeding him like a baby. No way. He interrupts her before he has a chance to speak. “One hand. Give me one hand—I promise I won't do anything. What can I do? Throw dirt at you?” He kicks his heel into the ground, trying to illustrate, but there's no dirt—the soil is too rocky. “Neither of us want you to feed me.”

She blinks, like she's surprised by what's coming out of James's mouth, and says, “Actually, I was trying to figure out a way the droid could do it.”

James almost laughs at the stupidity of the situation, but he's worried that would ruin his very serious request, and after a few moments she comes over to free one of his hands anyway. It's not like it's possible to get stun-cuffs off by pressing a button. And if you try using a lockpick, it'll just stun you. So James ends up cuffed to the tree by one hand, with the other hand left to eat his strangely fishy tasting food (he's never liked X-Wing emergency rations). The woman, a good four meters away, watches him warily over her own tin until he finishes. Then she cuffs him back up, and gives him two blankets—from his own ship—to drape over his shoulders and his lap, because as the sun goes down it's started to get cold.

It's okay, James thinks as he watches the woman gather kindling and start a small fire out of his reach. They're both stuck—and he's got time. Time to figure out how to talk his way out of this.

*

“So what's your name?” James asks the next morning over a tin cup of caf. She brews it strong, which he appreciates, especially after he passed an extremely uncomfortable night sitting up with his hands bound behind him. His back hurts, and his shoulders, and his neck.

The woman looks up at that. She's not very talkative in the morning. Something else James understands—he's only talking because he's finished most of his caf already. “Natasha Romanoff,” she says after a pause, almost like she's expecting James to have heard of her. He… hasn't. But he also doesn't keep track of bounty hunters, really, so for all he knows, she's famous. “And you?”

James opens his mouth, and then shuts it. He's far from famous as a Resistance member, but at the same time, he's not exactly anonymous. And he doesn't know why this Natasha Romanoff is planning to take him to Tatooine or what's awaiting him there, but it's probably best to make it harder for her to figure out his identity. After all, the last thing James wants is to get Steve sucked into all of this, and if Steve hears he's been captured…

“James,” he says after a pause that makes it seem like he's lying. And he almost is. Most people call him 'Bucky Barnes', after all. Steve's fault.

Natasha raises her eyebrows, clearly skeptical, but doesn't press. “James,” she repeats. “We'll head out today. You carry a pack.” She downs the rest of her caf and then rummages around near her bedroll, tossing something at him.

One-handed (his left hand is still stuncuffed to a tree), James fumbles the catch. It's a high-energy protein bar. He tears at the wrapper with his teeth and eats half of it while he watches Natasha check the condenser canteens she put out overnight, to draw moisture from the atmosphere and replenish their water supplies. Then she packs up their camp and scuffs around the traces they left. The rest goes in his pocket for later.

When she's satisfied by her job obliterating the campsite and packing up their things, Natasha finally comes over and releases him from the tree, her wrist bands crackling menacingly with energy. “Put on the pack,” she says.

James puts it on. He watched Natasha pack it and, like he suspected, it's heavy, but not unmanageable. She really does want him able to pull his own weight.

“Hands in front,” Natasha continues.

James sticks both hands out in front of him with a sigh, and Natasha cuffs him. “Do you know the way out of here?” he can't help asking, envisioning the long, arduous hike ahead of them.

“It'll take a few days,” Natasha says. She steps back and then shoulders her own pack, looking at him again. “A standard week, at most, if we sleep.”

170 hours. Given that Susefvi has, roughly, a 20-hour even light/dark cycle, that means… eight and a half days, James thinks, doing the mental math with ease as always. His X-Wing was packed with emergency rations for ten days. They should be fine. Food-wise, anyway. He rolls his already sore shoulders under the pack.

“Then you gotta start letting me lie down to sleep, if you want me in one piece by the end of this,” James says honestly.

And at the end of the day, she does.


	3. Chapter 3

The terrain, once you're no longer able to fly above breathtaking canyons and mountain ranges and have to cross it all on foot, is actually pretty backbreaking. James's life isn't made any easier by the heavy pack he has to carry on his back and the fact that Natasha seems totally unwilling to let him walk around without the stun-cuffs.

It's a decision that makes sense, from a bounty hunter's point of view, he supposes. But on their third day of walking, as he stumbles on an uneven patch of loose gravel, stumbles, and has to right himself by wrenching his shoulders and back rather than using his hands, he has to reflect—for perhaps the hundredth time since they started out yesterday—that this is a less than ideal way to bushwhack across an entire planet. He's sore all over, and he keeps falling, and his knees and elbows are bruised.

At least Natasha goes in front. She's in charge of finding the easiest path, and holding back branches so that James can pass, and warning him about unexpected pitfalls or dangerous areas. She does a good job of it too, and James's respect for her increases until, during the easier parts of their trek, like the lovely hour-long period where they hiked along a flat, wide stretch of bare rock, he can convince himself that this is some kind of long-term training exercise, that his stun-cuffs don't matter, and that he and Natasha are actually teammates of a sort.

Maybe that's why things happen the way they do.

They're walking in single file, navigating along the base of a cliff. It's probably a riverbed during the monsoon season, because the ground they're walking on is mostly orangey sand and gravel. Having the sheer rocky cliff face towering above them and blocking out more than half the sky makes James more than a little nervous, and he keeps glancing up at it nervously as they walk while Natasha forges fearlessly ahead.

That's why he's already got his eyes on the rim of the cliff when there's an ominous cracking sound above them, like thunder. With almost unrealistic slowness, a large slab of rock above them starts to detach from the cliff, causing smaller rocks to fall down ahead of it. James freezes for a second, and then yells, “Natasha!”

Natasha has just turned to glance up at the cliff. They don't have _time_. James runs forward and grabs her with both cuffed hands, yanking her back as a boulder the size of her head falls down right where she was just standing.

And then they're both running back the way they came, headlong and desperate, with R5, screeching in alarm, following behind them. James feels small rocks and bits of gravel pelting his head and shoulders and landing on his pack, and the noise around them, like being inside a Kaminoan thunderstorm, is loud enough that he can't hear his own voice when he shouts, “Nat!” again, reaching out with both cuffed hands and pulling her under an overhang in the cliff wall.

They both press back into the meager shelter as rocks fall around them. James doesn't know how much time passes until the cliff is silent again, aside from the occasional gravelly sound of shifting rock. It feels like ages, but can't have been more than five minutes. The air is full of dust, which is getting into his eyes and his lungs as he breathes hard, his heart pounding with adrenaline. It's a miracle he didn't overbalance, running with the cuffs. It's a miracle either of them—all three of them, counting the droid—made it through that.

Natasha looks like she's in a similar state, and when she reaches up to brush her dusty hair out of her face, her hands are shaking.

“You're bleeding,” James observes, his voice sounding strange to his own ears in the overwhelming silence.

“What?” Natasha says. There's blood on the first two fingers of her right hand.

R5 gives a few inquiring beeps.

“We're fine,” James tells him. The droid is sweet even when wiped. It's got a good personality matrix, he thinks. “I'm fine. Nat—”

“I'm fine,” Natasha says sharply. She's already swinging down her pack from her shoulders and rummaging in it. She comes up with a medpac and pulls out a patch of synth-skin and a square of gauze. As James moves around her, he can see that the blood is coming from a cut on her forehead, and has already dripped down to her jaw. The wound could be nasty.

“I can,” he begins, but Natasha cuts him off with a grim shake of her head, mopping up the blood as best she can and slapping the synth-skin over the wound.

“We have to get out of here fast,” she says, stuffing the medpac back into her things and shouldering her pack once more. “Dunno how long the cliff will hold.” She hands James one of their condenser canteens and he holds it with both hands to take a drink, washing the dust from her mouth. Then Natasha drinks too, and take a deep breath. “Let's head out.”

She's shaken, James thinks. They both are. But she's right, too, and they don't have any time to waste. They march back to where the rockfall happened and clamber over the still-settling boulders that block their path. It's well after sunset when they finally stop for the night, but they kept going with a mutual, silent agreement that neither of them wanted to sleep anywhere near the cliff. They end up in a natural clearing in a wide valley, far away from any possible rockfalls.

As soon as Natasha sets down her pack, James says, “Take off my cuffs. I want to look at that cut on your forehead.” This is an opportunity to stretch his arms and maybe to gain some of Natasha's trust, and he isn't going to let it go.

Natasha gives him a skeptical look, her mouth in a thin and unhappy line.

“I don't care how much bacta you put on it, that things going to end up nasty if there's any sand inside. It'll be better if I clean it out. I'm trained in basic first aid. I'm another pair of hands. Come on.”

His reasoning doesn't make Natasha look any happier. “I'll let you put your pack down, but you don't touch me,” she says.

James sighs. “Look. I don't wanna get dragged to Tatooine but I also don't wanna get lost here, and you're the one who knows where we're going, and we'll have a better chance of actually getting there if we work together. He holds up his cuffed hands. “I saved your life earlier, even. Sort of. I'm not trying to collect on debts, just—there's no point, anymore.”

“You grabbed me by instinct,” Natasha says but doesn't sound completely convinced.

“Come on,” James says and decides to push a little further, deciding to needle her with a joke. “You'll never make friends with that kind of attitude.”

Natasha glares at him. “I stay alive,” she says, but she's already pulling out the key-chip and unlocking his stun-cuffs, watching him warily. As they finally fall off his wrists, James can't help but give a sigh of relief. He drops his pack and then rotates his wrists, stretching them, before slowly stretching out his arms, spreading them, rolling his shoulders a little. It feels good to be free.

Natasha remains silent, and after a minute or so James says, “Okay. Sit down. Let's take a look at that cut.”

She's tense as James carefully peels off the synth-skin, which is stuck to her hair as well as part of her eyebrow, and she doesn't relax as he probes the cut carefully, using a tiny, bright flashlight that he found in the medpac. There's nothing that he can see, but thanks to their relative closeness, in the bright light, James notices for the first time that Natasha's eyes are actually green, and can't help but also get distracted by the way her eyelashes curve over her cheek when she blinks, and the way that he can tell she bites the inside of her cheek when he cleans out the wound with bacta spray.

 _Fuck_ , he thinks. But there's no denying she's beautiful. And also no denying that she is most definitely the enemy, and that the only reason that he's trying as hard as he is to get close to her now is so that she'll maybe leave an opening for him to slip away later, when they're back in civilization. At least, since she's good-looking and, sometimes, even enjoyable to be around, it's not like his task will be difficult. Thinking along those lines sort of makes James feel better as he applies a fresh patch of synth-skin, taking care to brush away Natasha's hair so it doesn't get stuck in the bandage again.

When he finishes, he pulls sanitizing gel from the medpac to wash his hands. “There. You're done.”

Natasha moves away almost immediately. “Thank you,” she says, walking back to her pack to pull out the rations. They didn't stop much at all today, and James is starving, so she must be fairly hungry too.

“Sure,” James says, closing the medpac. Natasha didn't put his stun-cuffs back on. Nor, as she tosses him a ration tin, does she seem inclined to do so.

The cuffs only go on when they both settle down to sleep, as Natasha secures James's left arm to a tree trunk as usual, so he's not able to slip away during the night. And as they're getting ready to leave the next morning, Natasha removes the stun-cuffs again and pockets them, giving James a look like she's daring her to question him.

He's not stupid. He doesn't say anything—just enjoys it in silence when hiking becomes that much easier.

*

They stumble across a lake near the end of the next day, before the sun has started setting, and decide to take advantage of the clear, fresh water after Natasha tests it quickly with one of the instruments in her pack and determines that it's safe for human consumption.

Natasha washes up first, leaving James cuffed to a tree at their campsite and instructing R5 to inform her if he makes any attempt to escape. She wanders along the shore by herself—James tries to watch until he can't see anymore—and comes back half an hour later, looking much happier, with wet hair.

“Your turn,” she says, removing James's stun-cuffs.

James stands. The last time he washed himself was in the sonic showers at the Resistance base in D'Qar, a few hours before their cargo mission, and right now he's definitely feeling the dirt and grime and sweat that he's accumulated over the past few days. As he heads down the lake, following the same path that Natasha took, Natasha follows _him_. 

He glances over his shoulder. “Still don't trust me?”

“I'm not stupid,” Natasha replies. “Anyway, you're unarmed. Someone needs to watch your ass.”

James raises his eyebrows. “Not literally, I hope.”

His attempt at a joke is rewarded by a disapproving snort from Natasha, then silence.

They make their way along the edge of the lake shore until James finds a sort of cove, a little inlet where the water gets deeper. It's still clear, though, and inviting looking—and he tries not to think what kind of animals could be swimming around further in the lake. At least Natasha's armed, like she said.

James glances at her sidelong once or twice as he starts stripping off his clothes. Being shoved onto a military base means that you quickly lose a lot of your body-related modesty, but this situation is different from simply getting undressed in the locker rooms for a quick shower after training exercises. Natasha seems determined to ignore him, though, gazing steadily out at the lake and at the fairly tall trees—all trunk, barely any leaves—surrounding it.

The water is icy cold when James splashes into it and he lets out a breathless stream of curses, which finally draws Natasha's attention back, only so she can laugh at him. “Here,” she says, pulling something from a pouch at her waist and tossing it to him.

James, shivering violently as his body temperature gets adjusted to the temperature of the water, fumbles the catch and has to grab at the thing before it sinks. It's... soap, in a thick gel, that smells fresh and a little flowery. Nice. “Thanks,” he tells Natasha, scooping some soap out of its little plastisteel container and lathering it over his body. When he gets brave enough, he ducks his head under the water too, and starts soaping up his hair. It feels amazing to scrub himself clean again.

When he glances over at her once more, he catches Natasha watching him before she has a chance to look away. “Enjoying the view?” he asks teasingly. He doesn't mean anything by it. He'd rather have her watch him than miss some lake monster coming in for the attack.

He'd rather have her watch him than… not watch him, because it's nice to be admired and, if their positions were switched, he'd have a hard time keeping his eyes off her.

Natasha doesn't seem to share that opinion, though. “You wish,” she says, jerking her head away. It might be just a trick of the dapples of light and shade playing over her face, but James could swear she's blushing.

Is she attracted to him as much as he's attracted to her? And will that make getting out of this situation easier, or harder?

He ducks his head back under the water to rinse himself off one final time and then clambers out of the lake. The breeze is slightly warmer than the water was, but that doesn't keep him from shivering again at another temperature change. He dries himself off as best he can with his undershirt, then pulls on his leggings and the orange X-wing jumpsuit, tying the sleeves around his waist so he leaves his torso and shoulders bare, giving himself a chance to air dry.

It must have been a pain for Natasha to get right out of the water, dry herself off, and pull on that skintight uniform right away, James reflects, but tries not to imagine too much.

He still dreams about it, though—the lake, bathing, Natasha's enigmatic gaze on him. He's not sure if it's a good dream or an anxious one, and he doesn't have much time to think about it before they set off the next morning, and then he's just thinking about putting one foot in front of the other as they continue their trek. 

*

There's one odd thing about this planet, something that took James a while to notice but, once he does, he can't get it out of his head. There's plenty of plants, from twisted scrubby bushes at in rockier areas, to the tall, nearly leafless things that grow by the lake. But there are no animals—nothing flying, nothing crawling, as far as he can see.

He brings up that observation to Natasha as they get started the next day.

“Well, this planet was terraformed by the Czerka Corporation centuries ago,” Natasha points out. “Maybe they just didn't want a planet with animals. I mean, look what happened to them on Kashyyyk.”

“Wookie are sentients,” James says immediately, frowning at her. Sounds a lot like First Order logic.

“I meant from everything _else_ ,” Natasha replies, rolling her eyes. “Have you seen holovids of Kashyyyk? You couldn't pay me to go there.”

“Bet your boss could, whoever that is.”

Natasha rolls her eyes but doesn't reply.

James keeps an eye out for other living things for the rest of the day, besides the various plants they pass at every turn. Natasha's explanation makes sense: the Czerka Corporation would obviously terraform the planet in a way to make resource extraction cheapest and easiest, and animals (James imagines, anyway) have a tendency of getting in the way. At the same time, surely some of the settlers would have brought beasts like bantha or nerf, or accidentally transported something like the beginnings of a gizka colony in the belly of their ship. There are all kinds of ways for animals to get around the galaxy and establish themselves even on planets with the strictest customs laws. And one of the reasons that the Resistance uses Susefvi as a supply base is because they don't have customs laws at all.

Then again, maybe the relative lack of animals is just a sign of how far they are from any sort of sentient civilization. It's the one explanation James can think of, but it doesn't fit quite right.

That night, they camp out in a forest made of trees with thick, squat trunks and tendril-like branches. The terrain has changed from mountainous and rocky to hilly plains and savannas, and James is cautiously optimistic that they're done with the part of their trek that involves scrambling up and down canyons and narrowly avoiding rockfalls. Natasha seems to be in a better mood too. James catches her almost smiling at him as she tosses him one of the ration packs, along with an extra fruit-flavored protein bar.

He catches both. “Thanks. Special occasion?”

“Halfway done,” she replies. It's something worth celebrating, sure, but James also feels more than a little trepidation when he thinks about his immediate future. What's his plan for getting out of this, exactly? Work his way into Natasha's good graces, pray she lets her guard down, and make a run for it as soon as he can?

James eats his food contemplatively, scowling.

“You're awfully quiet,” Natasha says after she finishes her food. Usually, when they stop for the night, James tries to talk with her, to get her to open up. It hasn't worked so far, but apparently she's come to expect it.

“Who do you work for, really?”

It's the second time that James has tried to ask her directly. This time, Natasha opens her mouth, shuts it, looks away, then turns back to meet his eyes, clearly reaching some kind of decision in her head. “Gorga Desilijic.”

“ _That_ slug?” He should have put two and two together when Natasha said she'd be taking him to Tatooine, but… Natasha's too _pretty_ , too _smart_ , to be working for the Hutts.

Natasha's lips quirk upwards in dry amusement at James's reaction. “He pays well,” she points out.

This has got to be some kind of racket between the Hutts and the First Order. Gorga pays for Resistance members, and the First Order pays him for them—or, at least, he tries to get them to pay. James wonders if he's gotten any Resistance members yet. None that James knows of. “How much is he paying you for me?”

Natasha raises an eyebrow at him, the amusement wiped off her face. She turns away to start getting ready to bed down for the night. “Enough.”

James doesn't press as Natasha extinguishes their lights (leaving one on dimly between the two of them) and lies down with her back to him. Sleep, as always after a long day, comes easily.

He's awoken by R5's frantic screeching. Coming to back to consciousness so immediately in the dead of the night is disorienting. James's eyes fix on the spotlight shining from just above R5's optical sensor, which is blinding him to everything else, and he tries to sit up.

“R5, what—”

He's interrupted by the feeling of something restraining his chest, keeping him from sitting up all the way. “What—”

His arms are free; with a nightmarish sort of desperation he pats at his torso and finds it wrapped in thin, snakelike things. Tentacles? Vines? _Vines_?!

“ames!” It's Natasha.

“I'm here!” James calls back, wriggling around. He pulls at the tendrils, but to no effect; they're smooth and slippery and he can't get a good grip.

“Are you—” Natasha begins, at the same time James says, “I can't—”

He's begun to thrash around, struggling against whatever is holding him in place, but that only makes the things seem to react faster, tightening around his legs and torso. He can't wiggle free, nor can he pull them off him without help. He needs something. If only he had his fucking—

“Vibroblade!” James yells, only half coherent, as he yanks at the vines wrapped around his legs. They've already constricted tightly enough that he can't quite feel his foot. Everything from his calf down is just pins and needles. “Nat, can you get it? R5, help!” Except the reason for the droid's panicked screeching, James realizes, must be because the things have got him too.

“R5, be _quiet_!” James shouts. It's mean but he doesn't have time to be nice. In the sudden silence he hears a strange hissing sound, like thousands of leaves rustling ominously in the wind, and the whirr of a vibroblade. Natasha grunts, then curses, then James hears her getting to her feet.

“James?” There's a swooping lurch of light that resolves into Natasha coming towards him with the lantern.

“Ow ow ow ow,” James is saying. Apparently the— _things_ don't much like light. As soon as the beams from Natasha's lantern touch them they tense up, constricting him even further. The vines around his chest are cutting off his breathing.

“Stay still,” Nat tells him. The vibroblade gleams a dull, metallic color in the dim light, and James forces his hands away from the tendrils binding down his chest. As Natasha cuts through them they snap, almost like elastic bands, and James knows they're going to leave welts all over his body.

“Fuck,” he says with relief as soon as his torso is free, taking a gasping breath of air.

Natasha cuts through the tendrils binding his legs and James immediately yanks his feet under him and gets up, tottering like a newborn nerf. As soon as he's freed, Natasha goes to work on R5. Meanwhile, without needing instruction, James hurries to their bags, packing them up so they're ready to leave as soon as possible. He grabs a lantern and illuminates it, and a flicker of movement catches his eyes.

“It's the trees,” he says after a moment's realization, doing a full circle and shining his lantern around the entire clearing. He sees flickers of movement just beyond the range of the light, where the plants are yanking back their vines or—he doesn't know. “They don't like light.”

“Carnivorous,” Natasha spits like it's a curse word. She's holding up her own lantern, and has her pack strapped onto her back already. Behind them, R5 spins its dome around, sending its spotlight around and around.

Maybe this is why they haven't seen any animals.

“Let's go,” Natasha says, holding the lantern high.

They end up walking closely together through the forest, their lanterns and R5's spotlight illuminating a circle with about a meter radius all around them. As they walk, James's hand finds Natasha's and she takes it without a word. They're both shaken.

The strange, carnivorous trees, with their thick trunks and slender, mobile branches thin out as they walk onwards in silence, still holding hands like frightened children. Eventually, the ground gets rocky again rather than sandy, and the ominous feeling surrounding them recedes.

“My informants didn't tell me about these things,” Natasha murmurs finally, sounding personally offended.

“Probably didn't think you'd end up on the wrong side of the planet,” James replies dryly. “'Least we had R5.” He doesn't want to think about how, without the droid, they might have slept through the whole thing, until it was too late to fight off the vines.

“One of us should have been awake. Keeping watch. We're getting careless,” Natasha says.

She has a point, but James also values his sleep. Wordlessly, he squeezes her hand, and they keep going.

When they finally distance themselves from the trees enough so that they can barely see the forest anymore, both of them end up dropping their packs and sitting down together, shoulder to shoulder, lanterns placed all around them. It's still dark, but there's a deep green tinge to the sky that warns that the sun will be rising soon.

“We'll get started a little later today,” Natasha says and then yawns widely enough that James can see all her teeth. The yawn is contagious—James mimics it.

“Okay,” he says. Neither of them move away from each other, and R5 stays close by as well. The inhibitions or mutual distaste or whatever that's been keeping them at least two meters away from each other at all times has been replaced by an unspoken need to stay close together, because their environment, at least in the dark, can't be trusted.

Natasha falls asleep first, and her head lolls onto James's shoulder. It's an unexpectedly heavy weight against him, and James snakes an arm around her waist just to give some extra support. It takes him longer than he expects to get to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Something's changed between them when they wake up together under the clear, greenish sky and bright morning sun, and it's not because both of them are sore and exhausted. Natasha seems surprisingly relaxed as she distributes their breakfast and James, before he can think better of it, says, “Hey. Thanks for saving me, last night.”

Natasha looks at him. He feels suddenly embarrassed.

“I mean, I know I'm your bounty. You're getting paid to keep me in one piece. But I'm,” he shrugs. “It might've been easier to just let that thing get me, in terms of, uh, costs versus benefits.”

Natasha tosses him a protein bar. “I might work for the Desilijics, but I'm not heartless,” she snaps.

That's… kind of encouraging, actually. James lets himself push a little further. “Maybe you're working for the wrong people,” he comments.

Natasha throws another protein bar, hard. It hits James on the side of the head. “Ow,” he says. “Okay. I'll stop.”

When he looks over at her as he's unwrapping the first protein bar, it takes him a second to realize what he's seeing, and another second to believe it. Natasha's _laughing_ silently, covering her mouth to try to hide it. James can't help it. He laughs too.

*

That day, they trek through one more forest of those strange carnivorous plants. The three of them—James, Natasha, and R5—stick close together and don't dawdle, and as they pick out a campsite, they make sure to fully explore the area around it, just in case. None of them want a repeat of last night.

But the plants in this area, as far as they can tell, are relatively normal, by galactic standards. Plantlike. Non-carnivorous. Natasha gathers up some dried branches as she's scoping out the place, and R5 helps them light a fire. It's something they've done without for the past several days, as there's really no point tending to something that could serve as a beacon for anything within a kilometer radius, but… fires also serve as a deterrent for plants that love the dark. And a potent sort of comfort.

Natasha sits next to him as they eat instead of across from him, and James thinks that's for comfort, as well. As usual, though, it's up to James to find something to say.

He's mostly been talking about himself—telling dumb stories about being a pilot, trying to “open up” to Natasha without actually giving anything away. This time, as he watches the flickering firelight play over her features, he asks about her. “So how'd you get into the bounty hunter business in the first place?” Not that it's hard, to get started. What is difficult is keeping it up, and being successful.

Natasha looks at him, her gaze once again evaluating, like she's having an internal discussion with herself about whether or not she should actually give him an answer. Finally, she says, “I had a rough childhood.” It's… not really an answer. But it is a response.

“On Tatooine?”

“No.”

And… that's that. It's hard to have a conversation when only one person is willing to participate. James sighs and turns back to the fire. A few moments later, Natasha speaks again. “Coruscant. Factory District. That's where I'm from.”

James turns to look at her again, surprised both by the information itself and by the fact that Natasha is willing to share. The Factory District is legendary for being a hotbed of resistance to the Empire, in the heart of the Imperial Capital. Natasha must have been just a kid before the Empire was defeated, but…

“So you must not be a fan of the First Order, huh?” he asks. It's kind of a loaded question, considering a First Order star destroyer is likely where he'll end up, if she turns him in to Gorga.

“I prefer to stay out of politics,” Natasha replies. “As long as I have a ship and plenty of money, life is good.”

“Well you don't have a ship now, and credits are no good here,” James points out, putting his hands on the ground behind him and leaning back a little. His ribs, still sore from the vine attack last night, protest a little, but the stretch feels good.

“Don't remind me,” Natasha says sourly.

The firelight makes shadows play across Natasha's face, highlights the small hollow under her cheekbones and the sensual curve of her lips. There are gold highlights in her red hair, James realizes, and then realizes he's staring. He looks away. “So what's the first thing you're gonna do when you get back?” he asks. “What's the next mission?”

“I have to go back to Tatooine to find out,” Natasha replies. Maybe James is reading too far into things, but she doesn't sound too enthused by that prospect. Then again, who _wants_ to go to Tatooine? That's where Luke Skywalker is from, but legend has it that he spent most of his time there trying to get out, anyway.

James doesn't want to go to Tatooine. He sits up. “Tell me more about Coruscant.”

Natasha looks at him with surprise. “You've never been there?”

James shrugs. “No. I was born on, well—” Technically, he'd been born in space, on a refugee ship. “My parents were from Dantooine, anyway. I come from a family of _actual_ nerf herders.” He gives Natasha a crooked grin and she actually laughs a little. “Did most of my actual growing up in the Hosnian system.” Shuttling around from planet to planet of the New Republic homeworlds like every other penniless refugee. “So, no. Never been to Coruscant.”

“Don't bother,” Natasha replies, her face clouding a little. If James didn't already doubt that her childhood was all sunshine and butterflies, that would prove it. “Though, maybe it's better if you come as a tourist. You can stay on the top levels. Gamble. Go to shows. Down below, though, every day's a fight for your life. It's no kind of place to grow up, even for a human.”

This is the most open Natasha has ever been with him, and James can't resist reaching out and touching her knee. When she looks down at his hand with a blank expression, he thinks he's dead for sure, but to his surprise, Natasha lets it stay. She does tell him, “I don't need your sympathy, you know.”

“It's not sympathy,” James says honestly. “I know what it's like—growing up never knowing whether you'll be able to eat the next day, where you're gonna sleep. I would've probably done the same thing, in your place. Smuggle or take bounties. It pays.”

Natasha shifts, moving almost imperceptibly closer to him. Their shoulders brush and James wonders if it was on purpose. “But you joined the Resistance, instead,” she points out.

“Yeah,” James says. It really wasn't that simple—first they found out that Steve was Force-sensitive, and James had enlisted mostly just to keep an eye on him, but… for all intents and purposes, that's how it happened. He and Natasha grew up similarly, but took different paths in life. And now, at least until she gets a new employer, they're on opposite sides.

Natasha seems to be thinking along the same lines that James is. She sighs and leans against him a little further. “We've got a tough hike tomorrow.”

James looks down at her. She's looking up at him. Their faces are only inches apart. If he leaned down just a little, he would be able to feel her breath on his lips. If he leaned down a little more, he'd be able to kiss her. James wonders: does this mean something? And if it does, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Does he _want_ it to mean something? And for what reason, exactly? He feels like Natasha is giving him a choice, but he's lost, because he doesn't know what the options—or the consequences—are.

They stay like that for a frozen moment before James swallows and straightens up. “Yeah,” he agrees. “We should get to sleep.”

Does Natasha look disappointed, or is that just the firelight playing tricks with the shadows and her face? James feels disappointed in himself, a little bit. They dampen the fire but set up lanterns in a perimeter around the campsite, and task R5 with keeping an eye out while they sleep. As he lies down, James feels like Natasha is watching him, and his dreams that night are muddled and confused, full of her eyes and her lips and warm firelight but also older memories: huddling with children around other fires, the constant ache of hunger gnawing in his stomach. Needless to say, he doesn't get much rest.

*

People have a tendency to tell James that he thinks too much. They also tell him he doesn't think _enough_. Both statements are true: when he gets an idea, he worries at it like a kath hound with a bone, but his mind is often made up from the very beginning. Like right now—he spends the whole day thinking about the moment last night when Natasha looked up at him and he looked down at her, how their eyes met, how there was a subtle but undeniable feeling of electricity between them. He doesn't know what to do. Should he chase that feeling, try to recreate it, and then act on it this time? Or should he be prudent and safe and restrain himself because he really can't afford to do stupid things in his situation?

He's already made his decision, though. He made it in that split second of bone-deep regret as Natasha turned away from him last night.

When they set up camp that night James is feeling both nervous and deliberate. He's heartened by the fact that Natasha sets up a fire again, even though they're (theoretically) far from the carnivorous plants. Firelight has a sort of atmosphere that their magnesium diode lanterns really can't equal. He waits until she's sitting down, then takes a seat next to her.

Natasha looks up but doesn't move away, just wordlessly hands him a ration tin. James opens it. He was tired of the awful X-wing emergency rations from the first day he crash-landed. By now, he's just glad that he walks enough to be starving every night, because otherwise he doesn't think he could manage eating these slightly jellied, fishy-tasting protein-rich nutrient blocks. Even now, he has to force himself to swallow. At least they'll be getting back to civilization soon.

“We should reach a settlement by tomorrow morning,” Natasha says as if she's read his mind. “We can barter for a speeder there, and then we'll be able to get to Czerka City by… nightfall, hopefully. Then real food.” She turns to offer him a look that's halfway between a smirk and a grin.

James's heart thuds. He's stupid gone. “Yeah,” he agrees, grinning back at her. “If you could have any one food right now, what would it be?”

“Anything?” Natasha asks. She raises her eyebrows, then looks at her ration tin and makes a face. “I… We can't talk about this now. I can barely finish this thing as it is.”

James laughs. “Yeah,” he agrees. “What I wouldn't give for a big, juicy bantha steak right now. Rib-eye. Medium rare, still sizzling from the grill...”

“Stop it!” Natasha hits him in the shoulder. It actually hurts. “How am I supposed to eat this when I'm thinking about bantha steak!”

James laughs again and doesn't argue and after a few excruciating minutes, they both finish their food. He feels both accomplished—for finishing the disgusting food—and unsatisfied enough that he throws the tin as hard as he can. It lands in a bush. The things are biodegradable anyway.

Natasha rolls her eyes but picks up her ration tin and throws it in the same direction James did. Hers actually goes farther. When James looks at her, she's smirking a little. “Pilots. No physical strength, all reflexes.”

“I'll have you know, I'm very good with my hands,” James points out and then shifts a little towards her, resting his elbows on his knees. “Last night...”

Natasha's look changes from amusement to wariness. “Yes?”

James wasn't sure where he was going with that sentence. He changes tactics. “You know… I know technically I'm your hostage, and we're not, I mean, this isn't—” He's not sure where he's going with this, either. His gaze drifts to the fire, then back to Natasha, trailing down to her mouth before he meets her eyes once more. “It'll be weird, ending this. I might even miss it a little.”

There's a pause. James feels the conversation limp and then grind to a halt. Natasha is looking at him, her expression unreadable. “James,” she says after a few seconds. “If you're going to kiss me, just do it.”

James meets her eyes. The firelight makes them somehow warmer, and she's watching him without a hint of nervousness or shame. He takes a breath, then puts his hand on her knee, and then leans in and kisses her.

It's awkward at first—kissing always is. But Natasha's mouth is warm and pliant under his, and James's slightly chapped lips brush her slightly chapped lips, and soon it stops being so awkward and just starts being good. Natasha shifts so that she's practically in his lap, and James grabs her hips and pulls her closer. They kiss open-mouthed and hungry, only pausing a few times to catch their breath, and in those brief moments, looking into Natasha's eyes and feeling his breath warm on her lips, James realizes how much he _wants_ her.

And when Natasha shifts a little on his lap to straddle him, brushing against his arousal through his flight suit, and makes a shivery, needy sort of noise, James realizes how much she wants him, too.

He slides his hands down to her thighs. “Should we,” he begins, just as Natasha says, “Do you think—” They meet each others' eyes, a little startled, and then laugh. James leans in to kiss her.

“Let's,” he says.

“Yes,” Natasha agrees, her fingers roaming around James's flight suit, unfastening the impossible buckles and clasps. James tries to help her out but he fumbles so much that eventually Natasha makes a frustrated noise and pushes his hands away. “Let me,” she says.

James takes up the time exploring the contours of her body with his hands: the curve of her breasts; her stomach, softer than expected; her inner thigh, where his touch makes her shiver all over. Finally, Natasha gets the top half of his jumpsuit open, and decides that's good enough for now. She pulls him up into another hungry kiss.

One of Natasha's hands are in James's hair and the other one is wrapped firmly around his shoulders when James, his lips against her neck, thinks of one more thing. He looks up just a little to find her green eyes already fixed on him, and he licks his lips. “This is something that we're doing that's… outside of the Resistance. Of the First Order,” he says solemnly, watching for her response.

His words make Natasha's grip tighten in his hair. It's possessive, James would like to think. “No politics,” she says breathlessly.

“No politics,” James agrees. He slides a hand up her front until he finds the zipper that fastens up her suit. “Just us.” Then he remembers the silent third party in their little group. “R5,” he says, turning towards his astromech droid. “Go to sleep.”

The droid beeps and goes into standby mode. James pulls Natasha's zipper down.


	5. Chapter 5

In the morning, James and Natasha wake later than usual, when the sun is already high in the greenish sky, tangled together in a pile of blankets and limbs. James is on his back, with both of his arms around Natasha, holding her tight like he doesn't ever want to let her go. Natasha's head is on his chest, and when she stirs, she rubs her face against him like a cat until he wakes.

“Morning,” James says, stroking back her hair.

There's a short pause where Natasha doesn't say anything at all, and James is just awake enough to feel a sudden surge of regret and uncertainty. Did he make the wrong choice? Was this all a mistake? Did she hate him now? Would she accuse him of manipulating her, cuff him again, make sure he got to Gorga on Tatooine? The Natasha stirs again, and James realizes she was just yawning. “Morning,” she says sleepily.

“Today's the big day, huh?” James asks, letting out a breath that sounds like a sigh as he stares up at the wispy, drifting clouds.

“No talking before caf,” Natasha replies.

When they both get dressed and caf is made, Natasha sits next to him to drink, but leaves a good foot of space in between them. James glances at the bare earth separating them, and then looks up at her. “Look,” he begins.

Natasha looks at him and seems to immediately know what's on his mind. “This is a one-time thing, flyboy,” she says. “Kind of like a goodbye.” She tosses back the rest of her caf and then stands, shouldering her pack. James watches the curves of her body underneath her skintight suit and thinks about last night.

“Oh,” he says. He's done with his caf and he stands.

“Come on,” Natasha says. She's turned away and James can't see the expression on her face. “We'll get to the settlement today.” And they start out.

The trek is easy today, mostly walking—on an actual path!—across flat, savanna-type land. And as promised, they reach the settlement in only a few hours. It's a colonists' town; a cluster of habitations around the main general store that slowly peters out the further you move away from the center. James notices a few red drapes here and there and is reminded that Susevfi was once under control of the Empire's forces. It's been forty years, nearly, but things change more slowly in these frontier towns.

He also notices that Natasha doesn't bother cuffing or restraining him. She keeps a close eye, but he's free to walk around as he pleases. She even leaves him outside to watch the packs and R5 when she finds a garage and goes to barter for a speeder.

This would be the perfect opportunity to escape, James thinks, and watches as one of the colonists parks a speeder outside what seems to be the main dining establishment, leaving it unattended for a while. He could grab R5 and his pack, run across the road, and get on that speeder to head out. Natasha might not even notice.

But that's…

He doesn't want to. Natasha's words are echoing in his head: _a one-time thing, kind of like a goodbye_. They make him feel strangely guilty, and he's never been good at… at this.

But then what? Is he going to let her truss him up like an Endorian chicken and bring him without complaint to Gorga the Hutt? Just because he got too absorbed in his own playacting and didn't want to end things like this?

“I'm an idiot,” James tells R5-C4, who turns its dome towards him and gives a questioning beep. Before James can reply, though, Natasha is coming out of the garage with the Twi'lek mechanic behind her. She gives James a look, almost like she's surprised to see him standing there, and says, “We've got a speeder.”

*

They make it to Czerka City—Susefvi's only major spaceport—in the late evening. The city is just like James left: grungy, shabby, somehow both small and overcrowded, full of all kinds of people who want to ignore, and be ignored by, Republic law. It feels like he's been gone for months, even years, like they've been lost in the wilderness for much longer than a standard week. He wonders if Natasha feels the same.

She parks the speeder and then they head to the first streetside food vendor they see to devour bantha kebabs and grilled vegetables and fruit-flavored fizzy drinks. James is amazed by how hungry he feels when he smells the cooked meat. He supposes that's what a week on emergency rations will do to you.

Then, since it's nearing dark, they trek through the city to look for somewhere to stay the night. Natasha doesn't talk much, just lets James follow along behind her like they're still hiking through the wilderness. That's fine with him. He needs time to think.

He told himself he'd wait until they got to Czerka City to make an escape bid, and he was correct in his assumption that Natasha wouldn't make any particular efforts to restrain him. Now, as they walk quickly through fairly crowded streets, would be a perfect time to make a dash for his freedom. But he… doesn't. The time doesn't feel right. He's not sure how to get R5 to follow him without alerting Natasha to what he's doing. When he finally thinks that he's worked himself up enough to run, they're already entering a spacer's inn.

Well. Maybe he'll make a break for it during the night, then, James tells himself, but he's never had this much trouble with indecision before and he's worried to think what it might mean. That he's gone soft. That he's letting himself be led like a baby nerf to the slaughter because of these feelings for Natasha that aren't reciprocated, that are all in his head.

It wouldn't be the first time that James has done something incredibly stupid for “love.” But, given the gravity of the situation, it could be the last.

The spacer's inn, like all establishments of its type, is just rooms and rooms of dormitory style bunks in various sizes and shapes to accommodate different species. Natasha still has enough credits to splurge for a private chamber—one bed, clean sheets. As soon as they get inside, she shuts and locks the door, then rounds on him.

“Are you an _idiot_?”

This isn't the first time James has been asked a question like that. But unlike those other times, he can't exactly see a reason for Natasha's sudden frustration. “What?”

“Why are you still here, following me around like the little lost bantha cub? Do you _want_ me to bring you back to Tatooine?” James must still look stunned in the second she gives him to reply, because she makes an aggravated noise and continues. “I thought you would run off as soon as I started letting you sleep without stun-cuffs. And _then_ I figured you were waiting 'til we actually got to some place where you could find help, but you didn't leave at the settlement. I left you outside that garage with the packs and the droid because I thought you would _go_! And you're still here, and I've already started negotiating for a new ship—what is _wrong_ with you?”

James rapidly refits this information into his understanding of the past several days. Oh. _Oh_. He feels incredibly stupid. “I just—I don't like unfinished business,” he says lamely.

Natasha crosses her arms over her chest and cocks her head up at him, her stance and expression aggressive. “Oh? What's the unfinished business here, then?”

“I,” James begins lamely. He's not sure how to finish. He'd convinced himself that the reason he hadn't run was because it wasn't a good opportunity, because the time wasn't right, because he wanted to see things through. See _what_ through, exactly? “I… figured you'd let me go eventually, or I could talk you out of it...”

“I'm _trying_ to let you go!” Natasha snaps. “You just won't _leave_!”

“Well,” James says and tries not to look as utterly embarrassed as he feels. “Can I at least get a proper goodbye?”

She looks like she wants to hit him. Before she gets a chance to do anything, James steps forward to kiss her. She lets him. Ultimately, it's a good thing they got a private room: James's idea of a “proper goodbye” takes nearly all night.

In the morning, as the sun rises and floods their small room with blue-green light, Natasha shifts and wakes James up by stroking a hand through his hair. “Rise and shine, handsome. Better get out before I change my mind.”

James makes a noise of protest—he's never been good at getting up in the mornings and it's even worse, now that he's got an actual bed. And someone to curl up next to. “Ten minutes?” he suggests.

Natasha laughs and continues to stroke his hair. Exactly ten minutes later, as far as James can tell, she pats him on the head and swings her legs out of bed, getting up to stretch. James watches her shamelessly as she splashes water on her face and then pulls on her clothes. When she's dressed, she turns to him again, frowning. “James...”

“I'm up, I'm up,” James groans, standing and stretching and feeling Natasha's eyes on him as he washes up and pulls on his flightsuit. He yawns hugely. It's contagious—Natasha yawns too. But then she's already picking up James's pack, handing it over to him.

“I put some credits in there, so you can get passage off this dirtball,” she says. “Take your droid too. It'll be a pain to sell.”

James pulls the heavy pack onto his back. “Thanks,” he says. “I owe you.” She's actually making an effort to save his life, as much as she'd deny that if he asked. And James doesn't even want to know how much money she's losing to do it.

“Don't start,” Natasha replies. “You were an awful prisoner anyway.” But she doesn't move away, just stands there looking up at him with this grudging sort of fondness in her expression, and James can't help but reach out to cup her face in his hands, wondering at this easy way of touching, wondering how her body is both strange and familiar to him.

“If we ever cross paths again,” he begins, looking down at her.

Natasha takes his wrists and gently pulls his hands away from her face. “We probably won't. It's better that way.”

It kind of hurts, to hear Natasha dismiss their whole time together, to shut down any possibility of a future. But maybe it's for the best. They are on opposite sides, after all. The next time they meet, Natasha might actually capture him. But James isn't good at letting things go so easily. Even with all the girls he's been with—he likes to stay friends after. It feels better that way.

A thought strikes him and he reaches into the chest pocket of his flightsuit, pulling out the smooth, bluish-gray river rock that Steve got him. It's the only personal thing he has. He hands it to Natasha. “Here. Take this.”

She does, but only to frown at it. “This is your rock. The one you wouldn't let me throw out.”

“It's me,” James says and then backtracks quickly, because that's _way_ too Steve-like and nonsensical a statement. “I mean—I have a friend who's really,” _a Jedi_ , “mystical and stuff and he found this rock and he said it reminded him of me and that it was special and,” he's not sure where he's going with this. “You should keep it.”

“So I think of you,” Natasha says, and there's a hint of mockery in her dry tone that makes James bite the inside of his cheek and remind himself that this is idiotic, she's a bounty hunter and he's a Resistance pilot, not two kids who like each other exchanging stupid presents. But then Natasha turns the stone over in her fingers, comments, “It's the same color as your eyes,” and tucks it away into one of the little pouches on her belt.

And that's that. “I'll go now,” James says.

“Yes,” Natasha agrees.

“Don't let Gorga slime on you too much.”

“Don't let those Rebel holdouts work you too hard.”

There's an awkward moment where they stand still and stare at each other, because neither of them want to leave so soon (James imagines) but they both know better than to try to convince the other to stay. Finally, James steps close one last time, bringing her close for a kiss.

Natasha kisses back, open-mouthed and willing, her body pliant under his hands. A minute passes, maybe a little bit more, before James finally pulls away, pressing a last, quick kiss to the side of her mouth. He searches her eyes, and Natasha, fearlessly, looks back at him.

Then he turns away. “Come on, R5,” he says, and, without looking back, walks out of their room, out of the spacer's inn, and away.


	6. Epilogue

Getting back to D'Qar from Susefvi is an ordeal, but one that seems light compared to spending a week hiking through the wilderness, often in stun-cuffs. James finds passage to Takodana on a cargo ship and works the whole voyage to pay off board and food. Once he gets to the lush, forested planet, he gets in contact with Resistance Command through Maz Kanata and bums a ride off the planet with one of General Organa's informants.

Two and a half standard weeks after he crash-landed on a hostile planet, James is back, safe and in one piece. It's like a miracle. Of course, there are questions.

He tells the truth—most of it—to the General and her advisory staff, glossing over the parts where he ended up getting way too close (physically and emotionally) with someone who is working, albeit a few steps removed, with the First Order. He knows that General Organa has had a fair amount of experience with charming but unsavory bounty hunter types. When Ackbar demands why the hunter let him go so easily, she intervenes with a slight smile and says, “Perhaps they got along well.”

Got along well, indeed.

Red Squadron is also happy to see him back. They're all at the base for the moment, and have a happy reunion with lots of cheering and hugging and backslapping, and then later, after James is done with his debriefing, another reunion that involves a lot of alcohol and poor choices that will become funny stories for the next day.

James never had a chance to drink with Natasha. He wonders whether she does—what her vices are—and what she's like when she is drunk. Fun? Angry? Sleepy? He has a lot of questions that involve Natasha and the more time he has to think about it, the more he regrets that he didn't have a chance to get to know her better.

And he's been thinking about her a lot, lately. Dreaming, too.

Then there's Steve. “I knew you weren't dead,” he says with quiet confidence when they finally get a moment alone together. James is kneeling in front of R5-C4, working on installing the droid's backup memory. It's an easy task, but a time-consuming one. “I would've felt it, if you were.”

James takes a moment to reflect on how different Steve is now from the scrappy adolescent refugee who was selected for Jedi training. He's still scrappy, of course. Still gets into more fights than he really should. But something in him has leveled out, steadied. He's grown confident and balanced even while he's still James's occasionally annoying, wouldn't-give-him-up-for-the-world best friend. Which reminds him.

“I gave her my rock,” James says. “Natasha.”

“Natasha?”

James realizes this is the first time he's used her name in front of somebody. To General Organa and her advisers, to the rest of the Red Squadron, he's just referred to her as “the bounty hunter.” “Yeah,” James says. “The—woman. Who captured me. She was going to throw it out at first. But I begged her to let me keep it. And she did. And then I gave it to her, before we left. Sorry. I hope you—I hope that's okay.”

“No wonder,” Steve says.

James frowns slightly at him. He hates it when Steve does this—gets all Jedi on him without an explanation. “No wonder what?”

“You've seemed awfully distracted the past few days. Like your head's somewhere else,” Steve says.

James finishes the verification process and then shifts back, away from R5, so he can look up at Steve, who is leaning against his doorway with an evaluating look on his face. “What? My head's right here,” he points out, grinning like an idiot and knocking his knuckles against his temple. “Ow.”

As intended, Steve laughs at him—but then picks up his line of questioning right where he left off. “What happened between the two of you? No, you don't have to tell me. Never mind,” he says, catching the look on James's face. “But you want to see her again, don't you?”

“Yeah,” James says. “I still feel like… unfinished business, you know.” It's the least compromising way to say how he's feeling, and Steve sees through it in a heartbeat, a wide grin spreading across his features. “ _Don't_ start,” James tells him quickly. “She told me—she said we'll probably never see each other again, anyway. And I've got no way to contact her.”

Except he knows her name, and where she's based, and who she works for, and isn't that enough, if he really wants to try? James sighs. Steve swallows his grin and actually manages to look sympathetic.

“You shouldn't beat yourself up about it,” he says, moving forward and reaching out to squeeze James's shoulder. “If people are meant to be together—you know, the Universe finds a way.”

“I don't need your Jedi mumbo-jumbo,” James says, but he finds himself grinning a little. As corny as Steve's assurance is, it makes him feel better.

The Universe will find a way. He'll content himself with that, for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _fin._
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you for reading! I've already got the sequel to this written, and it will be ready for posting in a few weeks. Aside from that, I'd love to chat about this AU in the comments or on tumblr, where I'm [serazienne](http://serazienne.tumblr.com). :)


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